Kukla's Korner Hockey

As for the big-shot Bergeron, I talked to Risebrough twice Tuesday, once before his flight to Toronto for the goalie equipment trimming meetings and once after. He believes Bergeron will be a guy who can play regular minutes, not just a bunch of power-play minutes. He says part of the motivation was to be a fill-in for Foster while he’s out, but “that doesn’t mean it’s one or the other. It will be an improvement to have both when Foster’s back.”

Bergeron has a club option for next year at $1.653 million. The Ducks almost certainly wouldn’t have exercised that. So why didn’t the Wild wait for free agency? Risebrough says other teams were interested in Bergeron, and Brian Burke was definitely going to trade him. In other words, he wouldn’t make free agency, according to Risebrough.

From Rich Hammond at Inside the Kings, the transcript from Dean Lombardi’s press conference yesterday, plus a series of posts where Hammond asks Lombardi his own questions.

Here’s more from Lombardi, talking about the natural assumption that the Kings might already have a new coach in mind…

“People can think whatever they’re thinking, but we haven’t done any research or anything like that. I think we were solely focused on the right fit here, but I think it’s safe to say we realize the importance of this hire and I’m not going to hurry it. I guess one indication that we don’t really have anybody in mind is that I don’t see myself rushing to get someone here this week. I guess if I had somebody in mind, I’d be on the phone signing him right now, but I’m not anywhere near something like that. I mean, whenever you fire someone, a coach or whatever, the thought is always in the back of your mind. `OK, who are we going to get to replace him?’ But in terms of us already finding someone and saying, `This is the guy who would fit,’ no. We’re not even near that.”

Look, Cliff Fletcher stated categorically on April 7 he wouldn’t be the one to fire Paul Maurice. A month after that, he contradicted himself and fired Maurice, saying it was his job to “clear the decks” so the next GM could make his own choice.

And yesterday? Why Fletcher contradicted himself again and hired a coach to a huge, long-term deal, thus clogging up the decks again. Best to write down things the man says in pencil, methinks.

Wilson’s a good coach, but Maurice was a good coach, too, and good coaches can’t overcome lousy, overpaid players, misguided and/or short-sighted management and clueless, fixated-on-23-per-cent-return owners who think tradition is celebrating Tie Domi’s 1,000th game.

The Pittsburgh Penguins won’t be able to keep their Stanley Cup runner-up club together because of salary cap issues. It looks like the Blue Jackets are prepared to offer a helping hand.

The two clubs have had preliminary trade talks, the Dispatch has learned. The discussions have involved Pittsburgh trading the rights to one or two of their pending unrestricted free agents—players the Penguins have decided they can’t keep because of the salary cap—to the Blue Jackets for draft pick or player compensation.

It’s unclear who the players are, but Ryan Malone and Brooks Orpik seem like logical choices.

The club already has $32.3 million US locked up in the ‘08-09 salaries of Heatley, Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, Mike Fisher, Martin Gerber and Chris Phillips.

The Senators must re-sign restricted free agents Antoine Vermette and Andrej Meszaros, while also contemplating whether to re-sign unrestricted-free-agent centre Cory Stillman, winger Shean Donovan and defenceman Mike Commodore, or any other player who may become available on July 1.

Commodore, for one, wants to know who the club’s new coach is before weighing his options on whether to return.

Fans attending a playoff game, where the stakes are always high, shouldn’t have to be told how to dress or what to say during the course of a game. They should understand that their attire, and cheering especially, could help encourage their favorite team to victory.

Instead, many of these recent playoff games seem to be played in a scripted environment. When a crowd isn’t being told what to shout by a JumboTron, the group is often awkwardly silent. This is unfortunate because the beauty of sports is that it’s entirely unscripted and anything can happen.

As fans of the game who give our money and time to the sport, this should make us proud. Nothing comes easy or cheap on the road to the Stanley Cup. Our champion is 100 percent deserving. This is also true for NCAA hockey, Canadian Junior, Minnesota high schools and every hockey trophy from mite to beer leagues.

Staying away from “boom thinking” has kept the Red Wings consistently excellent from top to bottom. Their portfolio has netted four Stanley Cups since 1997. They live in an old, rundown ranch, but they have no mortgage payments and, thus, live below their means.